Negligence: Medical Malpractice-Birth Injury

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Plaintiff appealed the verdict in favor of defendants, which found defendants not liable for medical malpractice during the delivery of plaintiff’s son, who suffered a permanent brachial plexus injury due to shoulder dystocia. On appeal, plaintiff argued that the trial court erred in allowing a biomechanical engineer to testify as an expert about the general and specific causes of plaintiff’s son’s injury and in limiting evidence of plaintiff’s son’s medical damages.

Where the expert was not qualified by her biomechanical engineering education to identify infants who were more susceptible to brachial plexus injury, the trial court erred in allowing her testimony regarding the specific cause of plaintiff’s son’s injury as the testimony was also based on speculation.

Judgment is reversed and remanded.

Huett v. Branson (MLW No. 80202/Case No. ED110991 – 18 pages) (Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Torbitzky, J.) Appealed from circuit court, St. Louis County, Waldemer, J. (John G. Simon, Amy Collignon Gunn, Erica Blume Slater, for appellant) (Randall A. Bauman, for respondents)